By 2025 marks the thirtieth anniversary of Catan, with the tabletop game set to launch its sixth edition this April. This is the first significant update to the settler-themed multiplayer board game in nearly a decade, following the release of the fifth edition— the version that transformed the game’s name from The Settlers of Catan to simply Catan—in June 2015. As the game celebrates its thirtieth anniversary, the designers aim to maintain its status as a popular entry point for individuals discovering the joy of board gaming.
“How do you keep an established game pertinent even after 30 years, right? Especially as the gaming landscape has evolved,” managing director and game designer Benjamin Teuber explained to me. “The hobby continues to expand and flourish, and there are numerous excellent games. Every year, I find three new favorites, and next year there will be three more, which is fantastic and wonderful. However, there seemingly remains something about Catan, as we continue to see strong sales figures. … Newcomers are always entering this hobby, and Catan appears to be a gateway game for many players.”
For Teuber, it doesn’t matter that Catan is 30 years old. Although many who enjoyed the game might eventually move on to more complex or specialized tabletop experiences, Catan will still deliver a fresh experience for newcomers. Teuber recounted a story about how Village Romance developer Michael Palm recently messaged him after playing Catan with his child, who enthusiastically exclaimed, “Klaus Teuber is the coolest game developer!” during the game (Klaus is Benjamin’s father and the original creator of Catan).
“The child is 10, so to him, Catan is a new adventure,” Teuber noted. “Why should it be any less enjoyable for him now than it was for players 30 years ago? It still appeals to many of the elements that people enjoy in RPGs, such as harvesting, trading, social interactions, and building. This game remains significant. And, certainly, while other games are being introduced, Catan continues to serve as a gateway for many who have just come into the realm of tabletop gaming.”
For those who have yet to experience Catan, the game allows three to four players (or up to six with the appropriate expansion) to engage in role-playing as settlers striving to establish a new community on the fictional island. Players roll dice on their turn to determine the resource yields of the land surrounding their territories, which they can then utilize to construct infrastructure and roads. You trade resources with other players, build properties, and create armies, presenting opportunities for alliances or betrayals. As each player’s settlement expands, they accumulate victory points. The first player to reach 10 points wins.
Catan is not undergoing any major rule changes for this edition; however, the rules are being streamlined and formatted anew to allow for easier understanding and quicker gameplay initiation. The game’s visuals are also receiving updates.
“From a mechanical standpoint, nothing has shifted from the fifth edition to the sixth,” said Kevin Hovdestad, the brand director. “Our primary goal was to ensure that players could carry over their existing knowledge of the game. If someone picks up the new edition due to its attractive artwork, the new packaging, or as a gift, we wanted them to have the same experience they are accustomed to. … The only alteration we made to the rules was to enhance their accessibility for newcomers: utilizing more images, fewer words, and presenting them in a more digestible format so that players can quickly grasp visual explanations instead of engaging with a cumbersome two-column format filled with detailed explanations.”
Visually, the sixth edition of Catan boasts a much brighter art style, advancing the game’s setting several years ahead and away from Europe—it remains pre-Industrial Revolution, but players are no longer confined to a strictly medieval atmosphere laden with heavy Western European influences.
“We’ve received quite a bit of feedback, including from my wife, ‘Hey, this looks great, but Catan feels a bit too medieval. It doesn’t appeal to me in that way,'” Teuber mentioned. “[The sixth edition] is still pre-industrial, but it is more colorful and has a more lively feel.